‘Game of Thrones’ TV Series in Jeopardy, Thanks to the Author of the Books

Hey nerds! Gather 'round. As everyone most surely knows, the television showGame of Thrones is based off the book series A Song of Ice and Fire. The first book, A Game of Thrones, was published all the way back in 1996. George R. R. Martin, the author of the insanely popular books, first planned the novels to be a trilogy, but hahahaha, obviously there's no chance in hell that's happening because dear god there's a lot of content and a lot of characters' fates to get through.

The third season of Game of Thrones has been the best so far, and it has taken material from the first half of A Storm of Swords, the third in what should be seven volumes. The fourth season should revolve around an action-packed second half, as well as parts ofA Feast for Crows(2005) andA Dance With Dragons (2011), the fourth and fifth books, respectively.

For those of you who aren't aware, A Feast for Crows forced Martin, due to the massive amount of content, to split the narrative into two separate books. There are no chapters involving Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister, and Jon Snow ... major, hugely likable characters in the first three novels (and on the TV show). There are also a ton of minor characters in the fourth novel, and many readers have admitted that not having Dany, Tyrion, or Jon really disrupted the reading experience.

So it will be up to HBO to figure out how to combine A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons that somehow makes sense. I'd imagine that they'd easily able to get two seasons out of these two books.

Then it should get interesting.

You see, fans thought A Dance With Dragons would come out in late 2006 to correspond with the release of A Feast for Crows. Nope, that didn't happen until FIVE YEARS LATER. We're all hoping that Martin is furiously scribbling away to complete The Winds of Winter, the sixth book. He claims that the book is tentatively planned to publish in 2014. Let's pray to R'hllor that this is true.

So, 2014 (season 4) should take up book #3 for the most part, then 2015 and 2016 (seasons 5 and 6) should take up books #4 and #5. Hopefully we'll have book #6 by 2014, which will be more than enough material for another season ... but if we have to wait another six, seven years for the last and final book, what the heck is HBO going to do? Obviously, we're talkin' three, four years into the future, and who knows what can happen between now and then. But it will suck if the show has to take a hiatus for the author to catch up and finally finish the series.

Also, it's safe to say that A Storm of Swords is the most beloved book so far. Dare I say it: Will seasons 3 and 4 be the best of the best -- but then everything goes downhill from there? Say it wouldn't be so, HBO! Yes, this is what keeps me up at night.

Whew, *wipes brow. As of now, HBO is pressuring Martin to "get busy writing!" ... and we fans kind of all feel the same way. Book readers are desperate to know how everything ends, and as the years ... and years ... and years march on, we can only hope that it won't take Martin a ridiculously long amount of time to conclude this addicting, amazing saga. Come on, we all know he's going to kill everyone off, anyway.

What do you think HBO will do if they have to wait for years between books #6 and #7?